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Results tagged ‘ Ben Sheets ’

The Milwaukee Brewers will formally unveil the “Brewers Wall of Honor” at Miller Park today. The Wall of Honor will commemorate Milwaukee Brewers players that meet a set criteria based on service to the club. A total of 36 former Brewers players will attend today’s ceremony, marking the largest single gathering of Brewers alumni in team history, surpassing the 31 players who came in for the final game at County Stadium in 2000.

A private ceremony for inductees, their families and special guests will take place at 4 p.m. and the wall will be available for viewing to the general public beginning at 6:35 p.m. A pregame ceremony honoring the inductees will take place on the field prior to the game.

The Wall of Honor will be a permanent display outside of Miller Park on a wall on the North side of the ballpark. Players on the Wall of Honor will each have a plaque with their photo and a brief synopsis of their playing career. The plaques are designed by Matthews International, designers of the plaques for the National Baseball Hall of Fame as well as the plaques on the Milwaukee Braves Wall of Honor at Miller Park.

Players who meet any of the following criteria while wearing a Brewers uniform will be inducted into the Wall of Honor:

2,000 or more plate appearances

1,000 or more innings pitched

250 appearances as a pitcher

Winner of a major award (MVP, Cy Young, Rookie of the Year, or Fireman of the Year)

Manager of a pennant-winning team

Individuals recognized with a statue on the Miller Park Plaza

Members of the National Baseball Hall of Fame who have played for the Brewers

Currently, there are 58 persons who meet the above criteria and will be recognized on the Brewers Wall during the 2014 season. In addition to the 58 members of the inaugural class, there are seven active players in Major League Baseball that meet the criteria. Upon retirement, players who meet the criteria will be added to the Wall of Honor.

A total of 38 honorees are scheduled to attend the event six honorees will be represented by family members. The complete list of players who will grace the Brewers Wall of Honor at the unveiling ceremony today is as follows (attendees subject to change, those who will be present for the event are in BOLD, those who will be represented by a family member at the event are in ITALICS and those not able to attend the event are in PLAIN text):

Here is my 25-man roster (complete with starters, batting order, rotation and bullpen assignments). We will be recording a podcast in the semi-near future to no doubt dissect this (and surely Cary will disagree with a few choices).

This roster was constructed with an eye on best players at positions, but also with an eye on making what could be a legitimate 25-man roster with capable bench players and not all closers in the bullpen, etc.

First will be the roster listed alphabetically by position with starters marked with an asterisk.

1 – Ben Sheets (as a nod to his longevity with the team)2 – CC Sabathia (he was that dominant in his short stint)3 – Yovani Gallardo (future ace would make an amazing #3 on this team)4 – Doug Davis (long tenure, LHP, consistent numbers)5 – Jeff D’Amico (very solid statistics despite only 33 starts with the Brewers)

The bullpen stacks up like this:

Closer – Trevor Hoffman (yes, only one season but an amazing season as closer)Set up – Francisco Cordero (flame-thrower, closing experience in the 8th inning)LOOGy – Brian Shouse (of top three including Mitch Stetter and Ray King, Shouse was best and most consistent)Others in the bullpen would share back-up 8th inning and the short work

I know that this idea is a bit corny and overdone already, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t taken a fair amount of time to compile the information that that led me to the decisions that I have made regarding my (and since I’ve been the entirety of the written Brewer Nation for quite some time now) and the Brewer Nation’s….

ALL-DECADE 25-MAN ROSTER!!! (which will come in the next post)

But first, some interesting tidbits for you all to digest followed by some high and low statistical totals for the decade of 2000-2009. A lot of these numbers helped me figure out my all-decade roster.

There have been 111 non-pitchers that have have at least one plate appearance for the Milwaukee Brewers this decade.

There have been 131 individuals that have pitched at least one-third of an inning for the Milwaukee Brewers this decade, including two position players (Trent Durrington and Mark Loretta).

The most common first name amongst Brewers in this decade is “Chris” (11 players). Second place goes to “Mike” (10 players).

Most seasons (or parts of seasons) played with the Brewers in the 2000s was 8, a record held by Geoff Jenkins, Bill Hall and Ben Sheets

Games Played: 1 (Tie – Carlos Corporan & Julio Mosquera)Plate Appearances: 1 (Tie – Carlos Corporan & Julio Mosquera)At-Bats: 1 (Tie – Carlos Corporan & Julio Mosquera)Runs: 0 (8 players never scored but Pete Zoccolillo was on base the most times without scoring – 6 times)Hits: 0 (4 players, Robert Perez had most Plate Appearances without a hit – 5)Doubles: 0 (10 players with at least one hit had no doubles. Tony Fernandez had 18 hits without a double)Triples: 0 (48 players with at least one hit had no triples. Carlos Lee had 275 hits without a triple)Home Runs: 0 (20 player with at least one hit had no home runs. Tony Gwynn had by far the most without a home run with 60. Next closest? Nine.)Total Bases: 0 (4 players. Robert Perez had 5 plate appearances without a base.)Runs Batted In: 0 (11 players had at least one plate appearance without an RBI. Brad Nelson had 31 for the most.)Stolen Bases: 0 (Since you can’t steal if you don’t try, 12 players had at least one attempt without a stolen base. Wes Helms and Felipe Lopez tied for the most with 3.)Times Caught Stealing: 0 (16 players with at least one stolen base were never caught. Santiago Perez and Mel Stocker each stole 4 bases without getting caught.)Walks: 0 (9 players never walked. Israel Alcantara had the most plate appearances without drawing a walk with 32.)Intentional Walks: 0 (49 players never were intentionally given first base including Alex Sanchez who had 684 plate apperances without one.)Strike Outs: 0 (5 players never struck out as a Brewers this decade. Nelson Cruz had the most PAs as a Brewers with 7. The fewest Ks with at least 100 PAs? Lenny Harris who only struck out 17 times in 215 PAs.)Times Grounding into a Double Play: 0 (17 players never grounded into one this decade. Alcides Escobar had the most plate appearances without a GIDP with 138.)Times Hit By a Pitch: 0 (36 players were never hit by a pitch. Marquis Grissom had the most plate appearances without ever getting plunked as a Brewer this decade with 640.)Sacrifice Hits: 0 (58 players had none with Geoff Jenkins topping the list by having 4154 plate appearances.)Sacrifice Flies: 0 (41 players never hit a sac fly this decade. John Vander Wal had 374 plate appearances without even a single sac fly.)

Hitting Lowests (4 players had zeroes in all categories, Robert Perez having the most plate appearances (5) without any stats, so the following is the lowest among players with at least one hit):

The New York Post’s Joel Sherman is reporting that CC Sabathia has told New York Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman, in a meeting at Sabathia’s home, that he would accept the Yankees’ record offer of $140 million over 6 years.

If true, this marks a sad day for Brewer Nation, but not a day that the majority of us didn’t truly believe wasn’t coming. Sabathia reportedly had been waiting for a west coast team to step up and offer a competitive deal but with the Angels focusing on Mark Teixeira, the Dodgers focusing on Manny Ramirez and not preferring to give pitchers contracts over 3 years anyway, and the Giants still paying Barry Zito…well, suffice it to say that nobody was exactly testing the water with their big toe let alone jumping in with both feet.

There are also reports that the Yankees have offered Ben Sheets a two-year contract worth $30 million.

In other Winter Meetings news, Doug Melvin apparently met with the representatives of Kerry Wood, Trevor Hoffman and Brian Fuentes. Wood is rumored to be nearing a deal with the Cleveland Indians, but that deal isn’t done yet. The newsworthy thing here, of course, if that Melvin is touching base with the other big-name free agent closers now that Francisco Rodriguez has agreed to terms with the New York Mets. Perhaps we’ll be able to focus in on other starting pitching options as well.

Well, Milwaukee, we’ve still got plenty of talent on this team and while Sabathia was the ultimate reason that this team made the playoffs for the first time in 26 years, it’s not like we’re going to vanish into the night and never contend again.

The Hot Stove sesaon will finally get kicked into gear, at least on the pitching side of things, with the two biggest chips reportedly having agreed to contract terms.

The next couple of days should be very exciting regardless of Jake Peavy’s apparent desire to continue guaranteed losing. All he’s doing is trading guaranteed regular season failure for guaranteed post-season failure. Enjoy!

UPDATE: The latest reports say that CC initially declined the 6/$140 offer and ultimately accepted a deal of 7 years/$161million, thereby making it have an average annual value slightly higher than Johan Santana’s contract which was the previous record for a pitcher. This blogger has also learned that the Brewers final proposal was going to be 5 years, $115 million with a mutual option for a sixth year at $17 million. That would’ve brought the full value of that contract to 6 years/$132 million, plenty close enough to the Yankees offer for Sabathia to accept if he wanted to, which may have been why he reportedly declined the Yankees’ initial deal.

With the World Series having finished (finally), it’s officially the off-season for all of Major League Baseball. That brings a lot of things, but most notably for Milwaukee it brings the impending free agency of several members of the 2008 playoff team.

Let’s review those players and discuss them a bit both in how their 2008 season went and whether or not I think they will (or should) come back to the Brewers for 2009.

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3B/OF Russell Branyan – .250/.342/.583, 33/132, 24 R, 8 2B, 12 HR, 20 RBI, 19 BB, 42 K, 1/1 SBBranyan even being a part of the Brewers’ system was a matter of fortunate coincidence. He didn’t have a job coming into 2008 and because he lived in the same city as his former big league club’s AAA affiliate and said affiliate needed a third baseman…well, it worked out.

It was another matter of good fortune when The Muscle returned to Milwaukee. He had been tearing up the league at AAA Nashville and the Brewers needed a left-handed bat to platoon with Bill Hall at third base because of Hall’s propensity to suck so hard at hitting right-handed pitching this year, Branyan’s bread and butter by the by.

Branyan hit home runs at a near record pace for the Crew for a fair chunk of the year. Eventually, however, Branyan’s numbers began to tail off before he finally wound up on the disabled list for almost the balance of the season after hurting himself during an at-bat.

It was almost poetic the way that Branyan rode to the rescue for a stretch, but at the same time it was just as much happenstance. That being said, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that the Crew could decide to open the year with Hall in the starting infield at 3B with Branyan sitting on the flight deck as the “Ready 5″ player. (Note: That’s a reference from Top Gun…I really hope you knew that without me having to tell you.) The bottom line on bringing Branyan back would be how much left-handed hitting they end up with on the roster after the Winter Meetings. Either way, I don’t expect Branyan’s lack of contract situation to be resolved any time soon. Fortunately for The Muscle, the off-season is plenty long enough.

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CF Mike Cameron – .243/.331/.477, 108/444, 69 R, 25 2B, 2 3B, 25 HR, 70 RBI, 54 BB, 142 K, 17/22 SBSo here’s the truly mind-boggling thing about Mike Cameron’s 2008 season: He missed nearly an entire month of games (25) due to a suspension but still managed to finish with respectable numbers in several categories. Unfortunately, Cameron also lead the team in strikeouts, beating guys that had at least 140 more at-bats than he did.

The former Gold Glove Award winner, Cameron’s defense was mostly solid this year. There were a few plays that he screwed up, but everybody has a few in a given year. I can’t remember how many times Cameron would go 0-2 in a count and then immediately take that same count to 2-2. Sure, he struck out thereafter an awful lot, but it’s still an interesting quirk of his season.

The issue with Cameron returning to Milwaukee next year is the price of the team option on his contract which stands at $10MM for one year. Yes, we’d have Cameron for 150+ games instead of a maximum of 137, but having already struck out 142 times in just 120 games, it doesn’t bode well for 2009. Cameron, like I’ll explain about Counsell next, might just come down to other roster moves. $750K is a whole lost easier to pay than $10MM, after all. What’s more, General Manager Doug Melvin has made it known that he wants to get more left-handed bats in the lineup to create better balance. The “holes”, so to speak, that we have to fill that we could fill with lefties are at 3B and CF (and possibly 2B depending on your viewpoint). For whatever reason, the Brewers don’t seem willing to give Tony Gwynn a shot despite the fact that he hits lefty, plays solid defense and is more of a prototypical leadoff hitter than anyone else we’ve got on the roster. That could help Cameron come back as a one-year bridge to another propsect being ready (Lorenzo Cain, perhaps, now that Michael Brantley was sent to Cleveland to finalize the CC Sabathia trade).

Time will tell on this one as teams have a deadline to announce whether or not they are picking up options on players.

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INF Craig Counsell – .226/.355/.302, 56/248, 31 R, 14 2B, 1 3B, 1 HR, 14 RBI, 46 BB, 42 K, 3/4 SBThe Craigger (as I call him) or The Schnozz (as my wife does) is a local boy with a flair for coming up big in clutch situations. There’s always some great anticipation when he steps into the batter’s box when the bases are loaded, but quite frankly for the 38-year-old, those situations don’t happen nearly often enough.

He’s got one helluva glove and I routinely find myself assuming an out when the ball gets hit toward him…but the bottom line is that .226 overall isn’t going to get the job done anymore. I’m a big Craig Counsell fan, but realistically can the Brewers afford to carry a $3.5MM (or so) utility infielder? Depending on some of the other rosters moves the team is able to make or chooses to make…it’s probably not feasible. Besides, if things go according to my master plan, we’ll already have an expensive utility infielder in Bill Hall.

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2B Ray Durham – .280/.369/.477, 30/107, 21 R, 12 2B, 3 HR, 13 RBI, 15 BB, 23 K, 2/4 SB (with Milwaukee)Brought it just before the non-waiver trade deadline, Ray Durham added a needed spark to Rickie Weeks at first, but ultimately the two fell into a platoon at 2B. one that doesn’t figure to be repeated in 2009 one way or another. Either the Brewers will recommit to Weeks or they’ll trade for a different double-play partner for J.J. Hardy (or possibly Alcides Escobar depending on how that situation pans out).

Durham missed several games down the stretch which could be contributed to either fatigue, age, bad luck or possibly a bit of all three. Durham is a switch-hitter, which is a nice thing, but the fact that he hits lefties about as well as Weeks hits righties (.238 overall this year vs lefties for Durham). His defense is more solid than Weeks’ too, but the fact is Durham is no spring chicken, or autumn chicken for that matter.

Bottom line on Durham is tha the was brought it to provide some veteran leadership for the stretch run and he delivered just that. If the price is right, he could be a fine bench player whether the Brewers retain Weeks or not.

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RP Eric Gagne – 4-3, 5.44 ERA, 46.1 IP, 50 G, 10/17 SV/SVO, 38 K, 1.47 WHIPFewer financial committments were worse in 2008 than the $10MM, one-year contract that Doug Melvin signed Eric Gagne to. Signed to be the closer after Francisco Cordero skipped town, Gagne struggled right out of the gate, blowing a 3-run lead on Opening Day in Chicago. The Brewers ended up winning that game, but it was the season for Gagne in a nutshell. Struggles, inconsistency, expectations…all in all Gagne just simply didn’t measure up despite falling into a setup role fairly comfortably late in the year after a stint on the DL.

As for next year? I wouldn’t even mind having Gagne back in Milwaukee, but at a much more believable price. I have a feeling that Gagne will listen to offers for a bit before deciding what he wants to do. If he has the chance to be a closer somewhere for closer-type money, perhaps he takes that offer. But I wouldn’t be shocked if Melvin extends Gagne an opportunity to return to Milwaukee.

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OF Gabe Kapler – .301/.340/.498, 69/229, 36 R, 17 2B, 2 3B, 8 HR, 13 BB, 39 K, 3/4 SBWhat a story Gabe Kapler turned out to be for the Milwaukee Brewers. The guy retires, manages for two years, get the itch again, lets people know he’s available, signs a contract with the Brewers that the majority of fans (thank you, I am NOT included in that group) did not understand or agree with. All he did was capably fill in at all three OF positions, hit over .300 and was our best bat off the bench as well. Unfortunately, for many reasons, Kapler’s season was cut short due to a shoulder injury. He could have been extremely useful to spell both Ryan Braun (rib cage) and Corey Hart (mental fatigue perhaps?) down the stretch.

Kapler will be 33 for a little over half the season in 2009, turning 34 on July 31st. That’s definitely not too old, especially for a guy who keeps himself in as good of shape as Kapler does. He is a free agent, and given the state of the league, could probably find a starting job on a few teams. Hopefully, though, the fans and clubhouse here in Milwaukee impressed him enough that he would want to come back. Hopefully, also, Doug Melvin was impressed enough with Kapler’s play that he would want him back. I think it’s a great fit here and if I were on Melvin’s staff, I’d push for a deal to get done quickly.

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3B Mike Lamb – .273/.273/.273, 3/11, 2 R, 1 KLamb has the option to become a free agent after this year. Based on his lack of starts while he was with the club, along with how they only picked him up off waivers, and there’s very little chance of Lamb not exercising that option.

*UPDATE* Lamb filed for free agency on the first day, as expected.

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RP Guillermo Mota – 5/6, 5.11 ERA, 58 G, 57.0 IP, 1/4 SV/SVO, 50 K, 1.40 WHIPMota came to the Brewers in what was probably the best trade of Milwaukee’s off-season. Doug Melvin contacted the GM of the New York Mets, Omar Minaya, and struck a deal. He offered Johnny Estrada against a list of players he’d be willing to take back in a one-for-one deal. Minaya picked a guy that the fans in New York booed when he was warming up in the bullpen for crying out loud.

Mota pitched well in chunks for the Brewers, a couple of times falling into old habits in New York that got him into trouble. Pitching Coach Mike Maddux corrected Mota multiple times and made him serviceable. If he’s able to continue pitching like he does when he’s right, he’ll help out whatever team he winds up with.

Now, whether or not that’s the Brewers remains to be seen. I think that Melvin would probably be willing to bring him back for a reasonable price, as he did finish the season as our most consistent bullpen arm and you just can’t overhaul as drastically as they did in 2008..can you?

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SP CC Sabathia – 11-2, 1.65 ERA, 17 GS, 130.2 IP, 7 CG, 3 SHO, 128 K, 1.00 WHIPUm…what would I be able to say here that could possibly come close to stating how incredible CC Sabathia was for the Milwaukee Brewers in 2008? The man was flat out amazing nearly every time he took the hill. He won his first 9 decisions in a Brewer uniform and, quite frankly, carried the entire team into the playoffs on his large back.

To say that the Brewers want him back is the understatement of the off-season. But, with CC comes a lot of $$. In fact, there is talk that the Yankees are prepared to offer him 7 years for a total of $175MM (that’s an average of $25MM per year, math majors). The Brewers supposedly are preparing to offer (if they haven’t already) a contract of comparable annual amount though not the years. Some talk has said 4/$100MM another I read said 6/$120MM. Either way, if the Brewers are fortunate enough to sign the unquestioned #1 arm on the free agent market…well…it’ll be a glorious day in the history of the Brewer franchise.

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SP Ben Sheets – 13-9, 3.09 ERA, 31 GS, 198.1 IP, 5 CG, 3 SHO, 158 K, 1.15 WHIPAfter finally confessing and repenting (if you don’t understand that point, you need to look at our September archive), Ben Sheets won a 13th game for the first time in his career and nearly pitched 200 innings for the first time in a few years. However, Sheets also fell prey to the injury bug yet again.

I personally feel that if this wasn’t a contract year for Sheets, he would’ve allowed himself to get shelved if not more often, certainly earlier in the year than late September. It’s unfortunate, but the guy is hamstrung like very few other players in the game. While Sheets hasn’t missed as much time, a decent comparison could be a Carl Pavano. Loads of talent, seemingly always unavailable when their teams need them most.

Doug Melvin has gone on record as saying that he has spoken to Casey Close (Sheets’ agent) and is going to making an offer to possibly bring Sheets back to the Brewers. Having endured the ups and downs of Sheets’ last few years, it’d sure be nice to have a healthy pitcher with his kind of talent. But the bottom line is that Sheets is NOT that pitcher anymore. Yes, a lot of his injuries are weird and random, but when they keep happening, I’m sorry; that’s a trend. And the bottom line that Melvin has to ask himself is whether or not the Brewers can afford the starts. They can afford the money that Sheets can/will get on the open market, but can they afford to carry six starters so that there is a guy ready to pitch when Sheets inevitably (yes, inevitably) misses a start?

The only way I’m comfortable bringing Sheets back to our mid-range payroll team is for Melvin to sign him to a slightly-below-market-value deal that protects our payroll figure from becoming over-bloated to the point where owner Mark Attanasio doesn’t give Melvin any flexibility to pull off deadline deals like he did this year.

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RP Brian Shouse – 5-1, 2.81 ERA, 69 G, 51.1 IP, 2/5 SV/SVO, 33 K, 1.17 WHIPOur left-handed specialist for the past couple of seasons, Brian Shouse is 41 years old but continues to get the job done coming out of the bullpen. Ned Yost used Shouse in some odd ways at times, but he is simply best utilized by bringing him in to face a lefty in a key situation.

Shouse is looking for a two-year deal which would be impossible to come by given his age if it weren’t for his continued success on the bump. Shouse has said that he would like to return to Milwaukee, but feels that he owes it to himself and his family to see what kinds of offers he’s able to field on the open market just to gauge his “value”.

The Brewers are grooming a replacement for Shouse in fellow lefty Mitch Stetter, but I’d still like to see Shouse return to the Crew for at least one more year. Left-handed relievers never seem to flame out so as long as he’s not given up homer after homer, Shouse will be worth the phone call to the bullpen.

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CL Salomon Torres – 7-5, 3.49 ERA, 71 G, 80.0 IP, 28/35 SV/SVO, 51 K, 1.35 WHIPTorres was traded for in the off-season to be a setup man but also provide more veteran leadership to a group that was sorely lacking in that department in 2007. When Eric Gagne was patently ineffective to begin the year and spent some time on the DL, Torres was handed the reins at the back end up the bullpen and did a stellar job until, quite frankly, he wore out by the end of the year. They say sinkerballers prefer to not be overly rested, but 80 innings over 71 games…that’s a LOT of work, fellow Brewer fans.

The team holds on option to bring Torres back, and I believe that they’ll exercise that option. It’s a reasonable cost at just $3.75MM and he pitched very well. He may not come into the year as the closer, but all that will be hashed out in spring training of course.

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***NOTE: Joe Dillon was designated for assignment when the Brewers claimed 3B Casey McGehee off of waivers from the Chicago Cubs. Dillon was claimed by the Oakland Athletics so he is no longer a part of the Brewers’ organization.

Everybody in the world of journalism (both real and imaginary) loves to scoop the other guy. Everyone loves to be the one that breaks the big story or is the first to “confirm” things that haven’t technically happened yet. There are countless journalists that have been writing for years and years, honing and refining their craft, and that get paid to write what they write.

I am not one of them.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been writing for a while now…I just don’t get paid for doing it. (Though to be honest that would be nice one day.)

Regardless, I have beaten all of those that receive compensation for their efforts (and therefore have actual incentive to investigate these types of things) on a “hot” story…bad pun kind of intended.

That lead? I have learned the details of the most closely guarded secret in Major League Baseball and the Church. I have learned the details of Ben Sheets’ contract with Satan.

The terms of the deal, to paraphrase, are as follows: One Olympic Gold Medal winning victory for the United States in return for years of unrealized potential upon arrival to the Major Leagues. There are subparts, including Sheets’ 12-win regular season maximum and the list of things that are permissible by the contract to keep Sheets at or under 12 wins (like freak injuries to himself or teammates, lack of run support and poor management amongst others), but the basic jist of the contract is that Sheets got to be a national hero for the United States’ Olympic baseball team in 2000 but it came with a cost.

In order to get him to agree to the contract, Sheets was offered a few concessions as well. He was allowed to have a few seasons with spectacular individual statistics, but only in certain categories, for example his 2004 season in which he threw a Brewers franchise record 264 strikeouts in 237.0 innings pitched, but still only won 12 games and actually lost more than he won (14 losses that year). He was also granted several stellar individual performances/career-highlights like his 18-strikeout game against Atlanta, the few complete game shutouts he’s thrown and starting an All-Star Game.

I honestly cannot believe that nobody else was able to get this information, afterall the signs are right there in front of us.

Season totals of 11, 11, 11, 12, 10, 6, 12 and (so far) 11 wins

Losing records in 4 of 7 completed seasons

Numerous weird injuries that took away many starts

Come on…”Vestibular Neuritis”? Who gets that??

I could go on for a while with the examples, but anybody that has watched Sheets over his professional career will no doubt be able to recall the signs.

The point here is that Sheets needs to repent for his unholy deal and ask for forgiveness so that hopefully his contract can be deemed uninforceable and thereby nullified.

Time will tell if Sheets realizes his folly, if he understands the error of his choice nearly a decade ago, and does something about it. For his own sake, for the sake of Brewer fans and whatever fans of the team he pitches for in the future, for the sake of his current and future teammates…Ben Sheets, I implore you, start praying.

(In all seriousness, this is a work of satire. No offense is intended to anyone and hopefully this isn’t taken the wrong way. I highly doubt Ben Sheets made a deal with the devil or any other spiritual figure. But since nobody else can seem to explain why Sheets can’t seem to win more than 12 games in a season either, I figured I’d go this direction, hopefully for humor’s sake. Thank you.)

Do you know the old expression in baseball “Pray for rain”? For example, when a team has , for instance, two dominant starting pitchers and the others on the staff are terrible or at least sub-par, the expression is used by that team’s fans to indicate that they have supreme faith in their big two and want them to pitch every game. Like the year the Diamondbacks won the World Series, it could have easily been “(Curt) Schilling, (Randy) Johnson…and pray for rain.”

Obviously that can’t happen in baseball because there are far too many games, and everyone knows this, but it’s a fun sentiment either way.

I bring it up, not because I don’t have any faith in Jeff Suppan or Sethid McBush (the name I’ve given our hybrid 5th starter since Ned Yost has decided to try the home/road platoon with Seth McClung and Dave (David) Bush for the time being), but because I believe our opponents will start using it in a very different manner soon, if they haven’t already.

Yes, I believe that our opponents will soon be saying “Suppan, McBush, and pray for rain.” This phrase of course meaning that they’ll hope they face our pitchers that have actually been hittable from time to time and then the third game of the series will be rained out so that they don’t have to face CC Sabathia, Ben Sheets or Manny Parra.

Allow me to discuss a case-in-point…

Brewers 9, Giants 1The Brewers opened up the second “half” of their season last night in San Francisco, California. The opposition, if you could even call them that last night, were the flu-affected Giants. Their starting second and first basemen were out sick with the same flu-like symptoms that kept Tim Lincecum from pitching in the All-Star Game.

But all that aside, Giants Manager Bruce Bochy still filled out his lineup card with nine big leaguers. One of those was young strikeout artist Matt Cain who toed the rubber for San Francisco. He lived up to his own billing for six innings before running into trouble in the 7th. He allowed two base runners in without recording an out in the frame which his relief then allowed to score. Prior to that, the only run he gave up was when Brewer starting pitcher Sabathia scored after his second hit as a Brewer (a double to right-center).

Speaking of Sabathia, he was amazing again. We all know that the Giants don’t exactly have a good offense, and they’re even worse when Cain is on the hill for some reason, but they looked foolish Friday night. Sabathia pitched a 110-pitch complete game near shutout, cruising through everyone and everything except for a bad pitch to Aaron Rowand to start off the 8th inning. 78 of his pitches were thrown for strikes, which is a strong ratio. Sabathia even helped out with his bat as I had mentioned already. He scored the Brewers first run.

Yes, the Brewers blew it open late once Cain tired and the Giant bullpen faltered, but two runs were all Sabathia needed to win his third game in three starts for Milwaukee.

Today, the Giants face Ben Sheets. Come on Sheets…how about a series win as a nice birthday present for me?

Tonight, in Milwaukee’s own Miller Park, the Milwaukee Brewers defeated the Colorado Rockies behind 6.0 innings of 3 run ball from Sabathia. Seeing as how only two of those runs were earned, Sabathia’s official NL stat line after one start is as follows:

1-0, 6.0 IP, 3.00 ERA, 3 R, 2 ER, 5 H, 5 BB, 5 K, 1.67 WHIP

Sabathia was uncharacteristically wild in his first start as a Brewer and was plenty emotional throughout the game. He loaded the bases twice which led to all three runs against him (one scored on a double-play ground out the other two on a double down the right-field line that might’ve been three runs has Ryan Spilborghs not strained an oblique muscle) but got out of jams after those runs scored.

In my educated (though nowhere near professional) opinion, Sabathia looked overly amped tonight. In all fairness to him though, there is a ton of expectation that comes along with this trade and how could you not get overly emotional when a sellout crowd of 42,533 fans is chanting your name even before you’d thrown your first pitch? (A strike, by the way.)

Having said that, Sabathia definitely showed his ability all over this game, but also showed that he’s human. By the way, the emotion that he showed after striking out Brad Hawpe was fantastic! This has the opportunity to go down as a historic trade when it’s all said and done, but for now, either way, this is going to be an excellent ride!

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I’m going to the game tomorrow night too (which was a part of my 20-game pack this season anyway) so I’ll see the Brewers’ two-headed ace in back-to-back games. Talk about a fun 48 hours!

Ladies and gentlemen…boys and girls…children of all ages! Major League Baseball proudly brings to you its 2008 MILWAUKEE BREWERS ALL-STAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRSS!!!!!!

Congrats to them and to you, Brewer Nation, for voting Ryan Braun is as a starter!!!!

(For the record, I’d have had this posted a lot sooner but I was at the ballgame today for the sweep.)

The final tally for Braun saw him receive 3,835,890 votes!!! That was enough to make him the overall #1 starter in the NL outfield. In fact, he was second in total votes in the NL to only 2B Chase Utley (3,889,602).

* I removed reference to knocking Fukudome out of the starting lineup (thank you to the comments). I hadn’t yet watched the All-Star selection show when I originally wrote this and made the assumption that the man right in front of Braun was the one he caught.

Meta

2013 – #4

2012 – #8

2011 – #64

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